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When it’s your own care it gets very personal

NHS England and the Local Government Association have named the first 8 sites that will, for the first time, blend comprehensive health & social care funding for individuals and allow them to take control of how it is used.

The first wave of the Integrated Personal Commissioning (IPC) programme will go live on 1 April 2015, providing some 10,000 people with complex needs with greater power to decide how their own combined health & social care budget is spent. The start of the programme is a key first stage in the delivery of the NHS Five Year Forward View that was set out in October 2014.

4 groups of high need individuals – older people with long term conditions, children with disabilities & their families, people with learning disabilities, and people living with serious mental illness – will be able to take control of their budget to deliver an agreed care plan. As part of the programme, local voluntary organisations will help patients with personal care planning & advocacy.

The Government ICT Strategy sets out to deliver better public services for less cost, and to release savings by implementing technology that increases public sector productivity and efficiency. A key aspect of the strategy is cloud computing.

In parallel with the drive to adopt cloud computing for its business benefits, the government wants to reduce its impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions by reducing energy and resource consumption, as reflected in the Cabinet Office supplement — the Greening Government: ICT Strategy.

This latest white paper provides public sector organisations with advice and guidance to help them make appropriate use of "green" cloud services and helpfully explains:

Cloud computing and UK government strategy

Why cloud computing is green

The Greening Government: ICT Strategy

How carbon offsetting works

Click hereto download your copy of 'Greening Government ICT: How Cloud Can Help'

Some personal care problems can be resolved quickly & cheaply using common sense

People with serious medical conditions are able to carry heavy medical equipment with them on their mobility scooters from 9 March 2015. This will mean people who depend on specialist medical equipment can now load it on powered wheelchairs & mobility scooters to travel outside their home. It will increase the upper weight limit on these vehicles by 50kg to 200kg, in cases where the extra capacity from necessary medical equipment. Newlife Foundation for Disabled Children, a charity who funds specialist equipment for children with disabilities & terminal illness, had campaigned for the change.

As part of Change DayNHS England is supporting “John’s Campaign” which supports people with dementia. The campaign calls for family & carers of people with dementia to be allowed to remain with them in hospital for as many hours of the day & night as necessary. Campaigners point to the difference between the treatment of family & carers when it comes to being with sick children & people with dementia.

Paid to train, no student debt, good employment prospects for both women & men and vital for future UK economic success

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, believes that IT apprenticeships have a vital role to play in helping to fill the emerging skills gap the profession faces and is calling on employers to support apprenticeship schemes. The Institute has been named as 1 of 3 assessment organisations for the Digital Industry Trailblazer apprenticeships. The first two IT apprenticeships to launch are Network Engineer and Software Developer. Apprentices studying these via a training provider assessed by the Institute will be given BCS membership for the length of their apprenticeship.

The Digital Industry Trailblazer standards published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been purposely aligned with the new Professional Registration of IT Technicians that the Institute, together with the Gatsby Foundation will launch later this year. An individual awarded an IT Trailblazer apprenticeship will be eligible to apply for a place on the professional register.

A trial is underway at Pimlico Tube station to assist blind & partially sighted people to navigate independently, using Bluetooth beacons and a smartphone app. The Wayfindr system has been developed by ustwo, a studio which builds digital products & services, in response to the RLSB Youth Forum'sdesire to be able to navigate London Underground (LU) without assistance.

The Home Office has funded the launch of a pilot to provide an alternative place of safety for people detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. At the 2014 Policing & Mental Health Summit the Home Secretary announced that the Home Office would fund the Richmond Fellowship to deliver an alternative place of safety in Sussex. The pilot will run for 12 weeks.

Employers who carry out ‘back-door’ criminal record checks on potential employees could face criminal charges after it has been finally outlawed. There is a well-established lawful process for checking criminal records, but some rogue employers have tried to bypass that by demanding prospective employees use their rights under the DPA to see information held about them.

New regulations mean that under Universal Credit no EU householdswill be able to access means-tested benefits in the UK without having worked here first. Action has already been taken to halve the amount of time EU jobseekers can claim Jobseeker’s Allowance, Child Benefit & Child Tax Credit and means that if they don’t have a job after 3 months they will lose their right to reside in the UK. New migrant jobseekers are also now unable to claim Housing Benefit.

Home Secretary has announced a package of reforms to improve the police complaints & disciplinary systems. The powers are part of a series of changes that aim to make police misconduct hearings more open & visible as well as increasing protection for police whistleblowers. They include:

Requiring disciplinary hearings to be held in public (from 1 May 2015)

The Communities Secretary has hailed the life-changing impact of the government’s Troubled Families programme, which has now turned around more than 105,000 of the hardest to help households in England. New figures show that the programme had already saved taxpayers an estimated £1.2bn, from a maximum government investment of £448m.

Graduate recruitment: Join the UK’s innovation agency - We help many of the most innovative ideas & businesses in the UK achieve commercial success. If you’ve graduated in the past 12 months or will be graduating this year and want to be part of the UK’s economic future, why not apply? All successful applicants must be able to attend Assessment on 28 April 2015.

Are you a female public servant wanting to climb the career ladder? You'd be better off in Canada. For International Women's Day we looked at the best and worst countries in the world to be female and in parliament or the public sector. Let us know what you think of the gender diversity in your organisation on Twitter via @Guardianpublic.